Quote: Durham Giant "
Please point me in the direction of the i[sizemportant and influential[/size artists, filmakers, dramatists poets singers and writers who are challenging the mainstream view and making waves
what i would give for the new Ken Loach, Caryl Churchill, alan bleasdale etc'"
I'll point you in this direction ...
rlhttp://www.channel5.com/shows/on-benefits-proud/episodes/on-benefits-proudrl, Channel 5's "documentary" on the unemployed and how much they take in benefits and the lives they lead at taxpayers expense.
I won't mince words - its a fookin disgrace.
But not for the reasons you may think.
The documentary makers from the 1960s and 70s that you speak of presented social issues to an ignorant public and made a difference, they made the ignorant sit up and take notice, they made the politicians sit up and take notice and eventually some good came of it, some social changes were made because the majority watched and said "this is not right".
What is happening now is that documentary makers go for the shock factor but for the titillation, the scorning disdain of a middle class who read the tabloids and believe that there is a scum lower class who take thousands of pounds in benefits from their hard earned taxes and waste it all on getting drunk, getting high, and sleeping all day long while their 42" 3D TV sets play Jeremy Kyle all day long in the corner.
If you missed the Ch5 offering have a look on catch up and ask yourself while you are watching it if the two families that were chosen as the subjects are GENUINELY representative of the unemployed, stand in front of a mirror and look at yourself and ASK yourself if you really believe that the 2 million plus unemployed ALL behave in this way.
And when you have honestly answered yourself, then ask yourself who commissioned that documentary and dozens like it and what was the brief to the director and who gave the director the brief, and for why.
If it was for pure entertainment then we can bin the "documentary" as being as educational and informative as "Made in Chelsea" or "Geordie SHore", ie completely irrelevant, if it was intended as education then it was a disgraceful use of propoganda the likes of which has not been seen since the 1930s when the Nazi party presented their "Jew-hating" films to cinema patrons.
THATS what has happened to your documentary makers.